Snapchat Advertising Costs – A Breakdown Of Each Offering

Snapchat Advertising Costs – A Breakdown Of Each Offering

Last Updated: February 6, 2018. Do you want to advertise on Snapchat? Here’s a breakdown of Snapchat advertising costs at each level of their ad platform. Want to learn more about the specifics of Snap Ad campaigns? Read our blog!

Snap Ads is the newest available offering from Snapchat. These are mobile video ads. You can also add the choice of an interactive element to the ads. The swipe-up rate for Snap Ads is 5X higher than the average click-through rate for other comparable social platforms. Here’s an example of a recent Snap Ad campaign from Gatorade:

That Gatorade Snap Ads campaign was actually a mini game within Snapchat. When the user swiped up, they were able to play an 8-bit version of a tennis game that celebrated Serena Williams’ 23rd Grand Slam victory. The average time spent in this ad was over 3 minutes (sidenote: that is an AMAZINGLY high level of engagement for an ad), and it was viewed almost 30 million times. Read more about that campaign here. The cost for Snap Ads varies by campaign. The cost for Snap Ads campaigns start at $3,000/month in ad spend. This obviously does not include the agency fee, or the cost to create the creative that you would run as the ad. If you’re interested in a Snap Ads campaign, let us know! View the complete guide to Snap Ads here. Bare Minerals recently ran a Snap Ads campaign, read about that here.Update in January 2017: Snapchat launched new ads allowing you to deeplink, which means you can send users from Snapchat to somewhere outside the app (i.e. you can drive users to download an app, go to a website, etc.). This is an extremely valuable new feature. This is crucial timing as Instagram Stories just launched ads within Stories a few days ago as well. Update in April 2017: Snapchat launched a new “Snap to Store” Snap Ads feature that focuses on generating online to offline conversions.
Update in May 2017: Snapchat adds new ‘Max Reach’ ad format within Snap Ads campaigns. Learn more here.

2. SPONSORED LENSES

Snapchat Sponsored Lenses are on the next tier of pricing for ads on the platform. The cost for Sponsored Lenses varies depending on the day of the week, holiday, trends, etc. A general rule of thumb for Snapchat Sponsored Lenses costs is this: $450,000 per day Sunday through Thursday, $500,000 for Fridays and Saturdays, and $700,000 plus for holidays or special events (like the Super Bowl).

As has been reported many times, the Taco Bell Snapchat Sponsored Lens received over 224 million views. Also, Snapchatters tend to play with Sponsored Lenses for an average of 20 seconds. Think about that last sentence for a second. People on Snapchat “play” with ads. On most other platforms, people hate ads. On Snapchat, users play with them. So, on a bang for your buck level, Sponsored Lenses are cheaper than Discover ads.

3. NATIONWIDE SPONSORED GEOFILTER

Nationwide Sponsored Geofilters are a new offering from Snapchat. McDonald’s did the first one about a month ago. It is currently unknown exactly how much this ad offering costs, but our estimates peg the number at about a fifth of the cost of Sponsored Lenses.

VANS recently ran a campaign that included a nationwide sponsored geofilter. You can read more about that case study here. The campaign had over 98 million views.

Snapchat Discover ads are the most expensive offering. Right now, Snapchat discover ads start at $50,000. Snapchat Discover ads get premium placement (at the very top of the app), and are usually reserved for publishers or big brands. And that $50,000 number? That’s a daily rate. Snapchat recently said that Cosmo, one of its leading publishers, gets several million views per day on it’s Snapchat Discover feed. At the top of the image below is where Snapchat Discover ads are featured.

Snapchat Discover ads used to start at $750,000 for one day, but a couple months ago Snapchat dropped those rates dramatically. To get the current $50,000 rate, you can do what is known as a “takeover” of a Snapchat Discover publisher channel. Getting inside of a “Live Story”, which are also featured in the Discover section, can cost around $250,000. Snapchat also recently opened up programmatic advertising for the Discover section, but that is not yet available to the public.

5. SNAP TO UNLOCK FILTERS

“Snap to Unlock” filters are one of Snapchat’s newest ad offerings. Recently, Kendall Jenner partnered with Garage Magazine to create a Snap to Unlock filter. There was a code in a Garage Magazine issue that, when snapped, would unlock a special filter. See the image below of it in action. The image below is being seen in subway stations in New York and DC, and in parts of Los Angeles. It’s a new “Snap to Unlock”

6. SNAP TO UNLOCK CODES

“Snap to Unlock” ads are the latest in Snapchat’s ad offering. The image below is being seen in subway stations in New York and DC, and in parts of Los Angeles. It’s a new “Snap to Unlock” ad promoting ‘The Girl On The Train’ movie. The cost structure for this ad is still unknown, but it’s believed to have the second lowest entry point, just after local geofilters.

Sponsored Local Geofilters are the cheapest of all Snapchat ad offerings. The cost for Local Geofilters can be as little as $5. Snapchat recently inked a deal with Foursquare for their Geofilters. Now, with Foursquare-powered data, the geofilters will be more accurate, and therefore more effective. (Learn more about how to use Geofilters in our post about “Snaphacking“). The ROI on geofilters can be quite high. We ran a campaign a few weeks ago that got over 23,000 views and the cost was under $7. Also, Snapchat recently announced “Annual Geofilters”, where they offer a discount if you buy filters in bulk. They are pushing companies to sign up for this. They also allow you to swap out the creative from time to time. This can work for smaller companies, but it’s great for larger brands that want to constantly have Geofilters be a part of their advertising campaigns.

IMPORTANT NOTE: For special events, Snapchat sometimes will raise the cost for geofilters. We’ve seen this number to be as high as $20,000 for a one block by one block area for one hour. Read this piece for more details.

8. SNAPCHAT INFLUENCER PARTNERSHIPS

This is not an official form of Snapchat Advertising through the company, but it’s a very effective ad format. Working with influencers to have them create content on your Snapchat account through a “Snapchat Takeover” works very well. You can also sponsor the snaps of influencers by way of product placements. Or you can get more blatant and hire an influencer for a series of Snapchat pictures and videos, promoting your brand. If you can get the right influencer with a targeted demographic following that matches that of your brand, it can be a great campaign. We’ve seen/done countless examples of this. If this is something you’re interested in, it’s one of our specialties :).

9. “SNAPISODES”

This is another unofficial form of Snapchat Advertising. It’s also quite new. Closely related to influencer marketing, “Snapisodes” is a new take on creating high quality, episodic organic content on the platform. This content can be created by influencers, or by your own brand. Learn more about Snapisodes here.

10. “PROMOTED STORIES”

During Snapchat’s quarterly earnings call on February 6, 2018, CSO Imran Khan announced that a new ad format, Promoted Stories, will be available to all advertisers in the coming weeks. We will update you further when we learn more.